touchdown

I believe you can still take them and Tara's trigger would still apply. It's says treat it as having range claw 1", doesn't say anything about removing the gun symbol.

Hope I'm not annoying everyone with this topic

I played a game against the new Big Hat crew and the Bring It! ability (to df duels for each enemy model within 1) seems like it is exactly what I would like to see and would be thematic for Taelor too.

Has anyone tried Talos with the Freikorps? Seems like he'd have good synergy with Hannah and Lazarus, but maybe not worth the cost when Arik is the same price.

It seems like a bigger drop in power and fun than it should be to run either Hannah or Arik as your leader since all equipment actions are either Von Schill or the Steam Trunk.

I think either the Steam Trunk should be special totem that Hannah and Arik can hire or there should be an upgrade with restriction Friekorps that you can only take if Von Schill is not the leader that gives an ability to attach equipment.

So I played game with Von Schill with the 1/31 rules last Friday. Now I played very poorly so it's hard to say where the crew failed me or I failed the crew. That said I have a lot of similar complaints to the rest of you.

Lazarus: he absolutely needs backup to make him work. He needs targets for Assimilate (and other than the Steam Trunk that means at least another 9 stones spent on either Arik or Hannah to stay in keyword). He also needs help getting out of engagement in my experience. I couldn't reliably get his pull trigger off and Bayonet just isn't good enough. He's also somewhat weirdly designed in that he's outrageously tanky but doesn't want to be engaged.

Now I know he has updates but some changes I could see: put the Pull trigger on 2 suits. Give him Knock Aside (he's a giant robot, shouldn't he be able to push models around?). Give him Unload Ordinance (does anyone really think a blast off a ram on a 2/3/4 attack is broken for a 10ss model?)

This crew needs more card draw. Hannah should have Surge on Ancient Words (and you'd have to pick between that and Glimpse the Void so this doesn't seem broken at all). Maybe Von Shill should have Bloody Fate on his rifle.

1 hour ago, ShinChan said:

What do you call decent defense abilities?

Most models with Armor or HtW have their Df/Wp reduced, so they're easier to hit, and the difference between attack and defense/willpower will result in better chances for higher damage (less negatives or even a positive). And Viktoria is supposed to be melee monster (and she/they are), they don't need such a good track damage in their pistols with Rg 12" when they can easily get a .

The Viks don't really have trouble hitting anything with 7 attack, but if you can reduce damage in any way they are probably losing to you

45 minutes ago, Erik1978 said:

Well Parker doesn't have anything against damage reduction either AND he doesn't have a stat 7 dmg 3/4/6 sword when he gets close.

Sure he has Mad Dog by his side, The Viks could hire him for +1 ss to gain the same anti armor weapon.

We can agree Parker's gun could use a boost. I still don't see why the melee ninjas need a gun that deals 4 damage on moderate. How about all the other Melee masters, why don't they have guns?

Parker has support abilities. The Viks have none.

Other melee masters can actually fight against models that have armor/shielded/etc

The Viks have no way to deal with damage reduction. They eat weaker models up but put anything with decent defensive abilities in their way and they struggle. It sounds like Parker's gun could use a boost but the Viks' doesn't need to be weaker.

One thing to remember is that the Child is significant now. Just being able to drop scheme markers for 3 stones could be worth it.

I haven't tried it yet, but I think there are few interesting combos that could make it worthwhile. Parker to get that extra push + shot 1 extra time per turn. Maybe in mercenary with the Student of Conflict so you can hand out 2 fasts per turn

Engagement says you can't take walk or charge actions so unless an ability says model may take a walk a charge action any other movement is fine.

I like what the Engineer does now other than Sabotage which seems pointless.

On paper I thought this looked like a good matchup for me with all the blasts the Freikorps has. However, in practice they just swarm you so it's hard to get out of engagement and take shots.

I think Lazarus has good stats and abilities but he basically needs support from something, another model to shoot off his pulls or something to pull him out of engagement. That's not great for a 10 ss model.

To be honest I played this game pretty poorly. Exposing Lazarus early when I didn't need to, played both of my schemes awfully, and made 1 mistake that likely cost me a strategy point.

That said, unless the majority of your models are killing 2+ gremlins per turn, you're probably losing against Bit Hat. That's a crazy amount of pressure. I think Freikorps has the tools to do it, but on one hand I don't think I brought the right models and on the other played badly as I said.

Also land mines seem terrible, am I missing something?

What if soul tether put a tether token on the leader that you could discard to do the damage movement?

Possibly much worse because this means it applies to max 1 attack per turn. Possibly much better because it's optional to use (so if you want to die can just not discard the token) and you would only have to be in range to attach the token. So you could go scheme runner hunting after putting a couple on. Maybe reduce the range to 6" for attaching the token.

there are schemes and abilities that interact with cost

3 minutes ago, RiceP. said:

Yes, they can, but why on earth would you want your 12" range model purposely engaged just to make that trigger work ?

I think it's more for counter charges. So they charge Sue, you counter charge with a Raider and they both get to hit back

I think they can trigger attacks from any model with gunfighter, so the whole crew apart from Mad Dog and Bandidos

Shouting Orders and Rummage Through the Trunk both interact with freikorps. Mercenaries might all have Battle Temp but they have nothing that actually interacts with their keyword.

2 hours ago, Vorbeck said:

Sounds like I need to give her another go then. Both games I have used her in she didn't really do anything but I can potentially see if she is left alone she could help both Viks. I did find that when my opponents wanted her dead she fell over very quickly. I will try her again though although I do like the utility the emissary offers and I don't think I can justify both in a crew but will try and see. 

I was thatguy's opponent and I took both Vanessa and the Emissary and it worked out pretty well for me. I put Vitality Potion on Vanessa and that meant she had essentially regen 2 with arcane shield. All you need to do is find one target you can kill from the center line and you're looking at basically adding 8 wounds to your crew's pool. Plus drawing 2 cards and intuition.

If you can't find a target healing twice for 2 card draw still seems worth it.

I also used the Emissary to push her so I took all my AP from turn 2 on from the center line.

On another note, I only brought a 3 ss cache. It was my first M3E game and I was used to Viks not needing many and just wanted to see how it went. I spent the whole cache on cards, and that basically worked out for me.

If the Viks get boosted I'd like to see them get a way to deal with damage prevention instead of increased tanking, they're meant to be glass cannons.

I would like to see their crew have a model or 2 that works well as a tar pit, which is basically why I made this thread.

You didn't forget about manipulative did you? I think you really have to make sure that attack on minus flips is a miss.

So like siphon power but a card instead of damage

Guaranteed onslaught for convict gunslingers sounds broken

I think Hans didn't kill Francois, but brought him down to 1. I think the Emissary may have finished him off, but I can't remember if it was the same turn on the next one now. I think it was the same so probably I lose that point.

Overall impressions on my own crew (Mercenaries):

The Viks are really fun in this edition. It feels like they're running all over the place and dicing up weaker models. However, with no more min 5 and no more Mark of Shez'uii they struggle against tough models. Having a better grasp of both of these crews now I would focus on killing everyone except Ophelia. When she has upgrades, it just takes too many resources to whittle her down, but the rest of her crew is pretty squishy.

Vanessa was great, my MVP. Get her on the center line and you're getting major healing and card draw plus intuition.

The Emissary was very good. HtK plus healing himself makes him quit durable, I only equipped out the Vitality Potion but it was key. His bonus to push and drop a scheme marker also got Vanessa to the center line and basically single handedly scored me Harness Ley Line.

Taelor felt underwhelming, part of this was poor play by me in turn one exposing her, but I feel like she should have more survivability and/or more stuff to do.

Ronin: wiped out, never got a chance to evaluate them. However this does make me think you want to be down 2-4 models with a Vik crew primarily to make sure you get initiative. I think the ideal turn is activating early and taking out a few models. That way you're not significantly out activated and you get the initiative bonus.

Hans: did exactly what I expected from him. Should have been more careful at the end to keep him alive. Although the Sniper ability is more expensive that I realized at first. I found it better to walk if possible for the potential of getting 2 shots or a focused shot on the next turn. Then again this did backfire for me so maybe I should have been doing Sniper shots all game.

Impressions of opponents crew (Kin):

I have to echo what @Thatguy has said (and looks others on the forum agree) that the enforcers and henchmen of the crew feel very generic. They hit and shoot hard, and have reasonable survivability but don't really do any greminily things.

I think Ophelia's crew needs a way to either do a mass heal or a mass shielded so they can use their abilities more freely. Also it feels like more of her models should interact with the arsenal upgrades in some way.

It doesn't have to be a heal, but some other defensive tech is needed I think.

Also, as a lot of people have noted there's no synergy with the mercenary keyword. I wonder if I Pay Better or Death by a Thousand Cuts shouldn't make a comeback. If Taelor had an aura that friendly (probably non-master) Mercenaries could discard a card to gain focus or friendly Mercenaries didn't have to discard for flurry or Rapid Fire (currently would only affect Ronin and Desperate Mercs I think) that would add some crew synergy, I Pay Better would also work as defensive tech since focus hangs around now.

4 hours ago, Icemyn said:

B) He is not Thematic: What benefit does Levi get from bringing his Amalgams or what benefit do his Amalgams get for hanging out with Levi? Spoiler: Nothing. Every other crew I've seen or played with there is some ability or action, sometimes multiple, that tell you why you are bothering to play in theme. If M3E is going to be the edition of theme and we are going 

I don't think there are any Mercenary abilities either

The game I just played, I had the exact opposite opinion of Taelor and Vanessa. Playing Ophelia, Vanessa demolished weak gremlins handing out major healing and card draw and Taelor died early on.